Hard Sell (21 Wall Street #2)(65)

I hesitate, then realize that though I don’t particularly want to talk about it, maybe I need to. Goodness knows trying to bury it deep and pretend it doesn’t exist hasn’t been serving me well for the past week. I’m not sleeping, I’m barely eating . . .

I take a deep breath and look up. “It would seem I fell in love with the idiot.”

I’m prepared for Ian’s shock, but I see none. Instead he gives me a sympathetic smile. “Yeah. I figured.”

“Did you?” I murmur. “Might have been nice if you would’ve mentioned it. To me.”

“Yeah, I can just imagine how well that conversation would have gone.”

I lift my elbows to the table and drop my head tiredly into my hands. “How did this happen? Why did this happen?”

Ian smiles slightly. “Does he know how you feel?”

I nod once, not particularly wanting to relive the moment in which I admitted my feelings and Matt did . . . nothing.

“And?”

I lift my head, not quite able to tell him about Matt’s proposal, but I say enough to give him the gist. “He suggested. . . sex. Companionship . . .”

Everything I thought I wanted. Everything that just until a week or so ago I would’ve probably been perfectly satisfied with. Someone to take the dog out when it rains, someone to laugh with. Heck, even someone to argue with, which I know sounds nuts, but even at our worst moments, fighting with Matt made me feel alive.

I wish I didn’t want more. I wish I didn’t want it all—the life partner and the fairy tale.

I meet Ian’s gaze miserably. “I don’t just want someone to be with. I want someone to love me.”

He reaches across the table and gives my arm a brotherly squeeze. “Of course you do. You deserve that, Sabrina.”

I smile faintly. “Try telling Matt that.”

“I shouldn’t have to,” he mutters. Ian’s gaze turns considering. “You’re sure he doesn’t feel the same way? Because the way he’s been acting—”

“Ian, you weren’t there. You didn’t see his face. Whatever I feel for him . . . it’s not mutual. Or if it is, it’s not strong enough on his side for him to be brave enough to act on it.”

Ian’s head drops in defeat. “For someone so smart, he’s such a fucking idiot.”

I pick up my Diet Coke and chew my straw in agitation, a habit I thought I’d kicked by the time I was twelve. “Agreed.”

“So what happens now?”

I shrug. “Eventually I’ll get over my feelings for him, and he and I can go back to the way we were.”

“The whole enemies-with-benefits thing?” Ian asks with a wince.

“No, not that.” I continue to chew my straw. “I think . . . I think I want to date. I want to find someone for real. Much as this whole love thing hurts like hell, I don’t know that I want to settle for anything less.”

“You shouldn’t,” Ian says firmly. “But you know you can’t go treating this like a project. You can’t just decide to fall in love with someone. Especially not when you’re in love with someone else.”

“I know,” I say with a sigh. “It’s annoying, but I know. But I can start putting myself out there, right?”

“Sure,” he says slowly. “After a time. When you’re ready.”

I say nothing, and he gives me a knowing look.

“Sabrina, what are you not telling me?”

I take a deep breath, already having a good sense of just how well my bombshell is going to go over. “Jarod Lanham is going to give Matt his business,” I say.

“What? He told you that?”

“Yes. He’ll give Matt his business . . . if I go to the Wolfe Gala with him.”

“Seriously?” Ian looks shocked and confused, and I don’t blame him. The situation is . . . odd.

“I met with Jarod a couple days ago, regarding a potential business venture,” I say. “He congratulated me on my ‘engagement,’ and I told him that the rumors weren’t based on fact.”

“Sabrina—”

“I didn’t tell him that the thing with Matt and me was a ruse,” I say, holding up a hand to stop his objections. “I just clarified that the engagement wasn’t true.”

“Then why would he ask you to the gala, if he thinks you and Matt are still an item? Seems like the ultimate dick move to me.”

It does, sort of. To be honest, I don’t have a clue what Jarod’s angle is. This whole thing with Matt’s apparently thrown me off my game, because instead of being able to assess someone’s motives in an instant, I’d shared an entire meal with Jarod, and I don’t have a clue where his head’s at.

“Surely you’re not thinking about agreeing—” Ian says.

“Hear me out,” I interrupt. “This thing with Matt and me isn’t real. He hired me to pretend to be in a relationship with him to clean up his reputation so that he can get clients like Jarod Lanham. I honestly don’t think Matt will care how it happens, so long as it happens. Lanham’s always been the goal.”

“So you’re going to do it?”

“I don’t know yet. It really should be Matt’s decision,” I say. “We signed a contract that I’d accompany him to any events, specifically the gala. But I can’t imagine he wouldn’t prefer to have Jarod as a client.”